District 3 Innovation Hub (D3) is a startup accelerator and entrepreneurial community located within Concordia University in downtown Montréal where students, alumni and academic leaders share ideas and generate new products.[1][2] It is located in the Faubourg building following a grant of $1 million from André Desmarais and France Chrétien Desmarais.[3]
Industry | Startup accelerator, education |
---|---|
Founded | 2013 |
Founder | Xavier-Henri Hervé, Sydney Swaine, Charles Gedeon, Ali Tahouni |
Headquarters | , |
Number of locations | 2 spaces (2016) |
Key people | Xavier-Henri Hervé, Noor El Bawab |
Website | district3 |
It hold events aimed at creating connections between members from different industry sectors.[4] Startups use the D3 space during their startup programs, while many other people use it to make prototypes, get mentorship, and have a co-working space located within a university.[5] The program assists high potential startups with finding funding.[6]
In 2016, District 3 was awarded "Startup Canada Entrepreneur Support Award" for the Quebec region.[7]
On June 9, 2016, District 3 partnered InnoCité MTL, TandemLaunch, Founder Institute, Centech and FounderFuel to host Montréal's first event with all the city's incubators present.[8] In January 2016, District 3 started hosting teams for the IBM Watson AI XPrize competition as part of a partnership, an initiative led by Sydney Swaine.[9][10] In 2017, D3 became the official community partner of Singularity University in Montréal,[11][12] hosting the official satellite event on October 11–12, 2017.[13]